Why didn't I think of that?

Jeremy's brother came down to Salem for a visit. We have had LOADS of fun with him - especially his nephews (my boys).

That's Uncle James on the tramp with my kids - just one of the boys.

While he was here - he thought up a brilliant idea on how to solve my parenting dilemma - how do I tame my wild children?

Solution - you duct tape them up!

James - I am so glad you came to visit - really!

If anyone else needs a babysitter, I will be sure to hand your name and number out!

P.S. On a lighter note, I really am glad you came down -it's been nice for Jeremy to have a buddy and for someone to clean up my kitchen after dinner - you are great!

Day Off!

I know this is probably a common situation for most stay at home moms, so I thought you would all empathize with my day off yesterday.
Background:
You see in our traditional American house we technically have one breadwinner - my husband with the salaried job. I supplement minor purchases with my meager income but none of what we need to survive is based on what money I bring in. That is the tangible monetary "income" in our family. However, my real job has much less clear boundaries - I mean, how can we define what we, household managers, really do on a daily basis? I know that I wake up around 5am and don't go to bed until 10pm. And most of what fills that working day has to do with children, household chores and management, and family. There is probably about 1-2 hours in that time that I do something solely for me, but that's it.

So it tends to make me bristle when my husband has a "day off" from work and therefore he has permission to 1) sleep in, 2) sit in PJs most of the day, and 3) hang out on the couch. I know that I wish I could have a day off where I don't have any responsibilities.

So yesterday, I took my first official DAY OFF! I still woke up early (only because I like to) and I stayed in my workout clothes. I went to Blockbuster and rented a stupid girly movie (Bride Wars). Then, I locked myself in my room - that's right, I LOCKED myself (those kids will find a way in if it's not locked) - and spread out all the projects I've been wanting to do. I read through most of my huge magazine pile - I organize my recipe book and tearouts from magazines - I redid our spending budget - I made list after list after list (including a wish list) - I ironed all my clothes (I find it soothing) - I cleaned my room and organized it so it felt like a nice place to be. Then after my movie was over, I read my book for about 2 hours. It felt incredible.

So my friends, I encourage you if you are able, to just take a DAY OFF!

Old Mother Hubbard...

Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard

To get her children some bread

When she got there, the cupboard was bare

And so, her poor children, had none.

(this nursery rhyme was amended by me to fit today's post)

Budget is a four letter word in my vocabulary. Not until we resigned ourselves to a strict, cash-only system have I begun to see how frivolously I spent our money over the years. One of our biggest expenses is food. And I'm not talking about going out to eat because we RARELY do that (I honestly prefer to cook my own food). I'm talking about buying food at Costco and the grocery store to stock our pantry, fridge, and freezer to feed FOUR boys (and little 'ol me). Before the new budget - I easily spent close to $250/week on food - equally about $1000 a month in grocery food purchases alone! With our new budget, I only shop at Costco every other week and I have only $200. I fill in the gaps with WINCO (the cheap grocery store) at $50/week. That, my friends, means I'm spending $600/month on food, saving us $400 a month in food expenditures. However, let me tell you that the day before Costco day and grocery day, my cupboards sure feel bare!! But I am staying strong and not caving in and when my poor children run to the cupboard and cry "Where is the food?" - I say, "Get a slice of bread and put some butter on it - or better yet - pour some of that rice down your throat."

This is the morning of Costco day. It looks so bare to our overfed American eyes!!
It looks full, but I raided the freezer to make our dollar stretch even further. I had some frozen shrimp, some chicken broth, and some frozen peas. That night we had saffron infused shrimp/pea risotto for dinner. And those large cottage cheese containers? Those are filled with leftovers. I used to buy the brand new, clear Ziploc storage containers. Sorry - it's now the poor man's storage containers for us.

I keep chanting - we're getting out of debt, we will owe nobody, we are standing on our feet, the sacrifices are worth it, etc, etc......

This Week in the Garden - tricks of the trade

Today I wanted to talk about some of my tricks I use in my garden. Maybe you get some ideas, maybe not. If anything, I still get to show you how it is growing.

Remember these luscious mixed greens? How you oohed and awed over how beautiful it is?

I grew my first cycle of greens in this. Just a large planter next to my front door.

(Be sure to grow it in organic soil and use organic, natural fertilizer)

You can also see I started a few rows of lettuce, spinach, and arugula in the large garden.

Today I had to plant out my tomato plants and I just stuck them in between the rows of lettuce. Lettuce starts to peter out by June when the weather gets hot, so I'll remove them just as the tomato plants are taking off.

Also notice the green garden hose winding its way through the bed. Ever had an old hose that gets permanent kinks in it and you can't use it again? Well, drill holes in it about every 2 inches, buy a cap for the end of it, and you have a free soaker hose using materials from your own house.

(plus it is better for plants to be watered by a soaker hose from the bottom instead of water from a sprinkler on the top. Top watering makes the leaves get mildew faster.

Okay, this one is a little hokey, but I like it.
My neighbor cut an old branch off one of his trees. I asked if I could have it and I cut it into smaller lengths and drilled them together in a tee pee style garden trellis. I planted sweet pea seeds - which is a summer annual vine that has the best smelling flowers! I put this right off my deck and kitchen window so when the wind blows through the sweet peas, I'll smell them inside as well as outside.

We don't have a ton of extra money - see my post on our get out of debt plan- so we had to improvise on adding a bird bath to our yard. Jeremy took some scrap branches and drilled them together - we put a larger saucer on top of it (a saucer that you would put under a large container) - and voila - cheap bird bath. It also looks a little rustic, don't you think?

Our sugar snap peas were growing out of control. No one ever told me that the vines could exceed seven feet!

So we took a rebounder from our kid's baseball collection (a rebounder is a contraption that you throw a baseball at and it returns it back to you because the netting is stretched tightly over the frame). Our had been left out in the rain all winter, so it had lost its bounce, and look - it's been repurposed.

These are my hanging baskets I just planted. The container is one that came in a hanging basket I got years ago at Costco and I just use it year after year. I like the rustic-ness of it. I also have a vinca vine in it (see it in the back with the light purple flowers?) I left it in from last summer and it survived the winter and now it is much bigger and a great start to my basket. All I had to add was a geranium, calibrachea, and some petunias.

Our new backyard border. There are some perennials in here, but they are so small. So use annuals to fill in the gaps.
When I get an "a-ha" moment of a plant I should add to my garden, I quickly place a marker where I think it should go....
and I write down what I want to plant - that way before I go to the nursery I know what I want to get and where to place it once I get it home.

You know how you make super cheap plant markers? Cut up strips off old milk jugs and make one end pointed. Label with sharpies. Could not be easier and cheaper!

I keep all my garden equipment handy in a old plate rack that I mounted right next to my back door. I have my garden gloves, scissors (for deadheading), garden twine (for tying up anything), seed packets - and yes, that is Chili's hairbrush because often she likes to lay in the bark and I have to brush her off before she comes inside.

Now if I could just figure out a system for arranging all those shoes by the back door!!

See you soon!!

For dinner....

This is a Chilidog

And this...

is a Chili baby

Super fun diaper the next day, let me tell you.

Baseball Moms to the rescue!!

Do I always post about how hectic my days are? Well today was one of them. I'm simply exhausted - nothing new to any stay at home mom - but this afternoon I was bone tired. And both boys had baseball games for 6pm. And the baby is especially cranky and won't stop crying. And Jeremy works until 9pm. I normally try to handle it all and be superwoman/mom, but today I simply couldn't. So I bit the bullet and called the coach's wife and asked if she could come get Jackson and bring him home after the game. Then I called a team mom and asked if she could pick up Blake and then bring him home. And I put Chase in his crib for a timeout (more for me than for him). Now I'm sitting here at the computer in the first moment of silence I've had all day. Holy smokes.

Thank heavens for baseball moms who helped me out today!!

This last month in the garden

How I wanted to be dilligent and post every week about my garden, but honestly, I may just post when I have the time. This post is a little long, so bear with me. It's from mid-April - you should see my plants today. I will post the most current pictures soon.

Broccoli and Brussel Sprouts with an artichoke in the middle of the very far left

See the baby broccoli?
Salad bed - mixture of greens, argula, and spinach
Some of that delicious salad on my egg salad sandwich for lunch

Jeremy constructed a bunch of bird feeders. This one he hung on our big backyard tree and every day we receive 20-40 birds. Blue jays are especially beautiful to look at. If you have a garden, encourage birds to come visit your yard by providing a bird bath and feeders. They are natural insect pest control!

Front yard - tulips in full bloomHellebores - one of my most favorites. They are an evergreen shrub - they like shade - and they start blooming these wonderful flowers in mid-January.

For some reason my tulips came up bright and strong, but my daffodils didn't flower at all. The leaves came up, but no yellow blooms. Weird.Hydrangeas are starting to leaf out.

We added a strawberry and blueberry patch to an unused section of our front yard. We bought 36 strawberry plants at costco!

The grass is up in the backyard - isn't it wonderful?

Another reason to love my neighbors

Today was crazy hectic - you know those kind of days - but today I signed another client! Anyhow, my backyard neighbor calls me up and says, "I'm having one of those days" and I say, "Okay, meet in my backyard in five minutes." We open our backdoors - let our babies out - and just sit in my grass venting about life. Not more than five minutes into our conversation, another neighbor/mom who lives on the side of me pops her head over the fence saying, "I thought I heard the two of you talking." And we proceed to compare all of our gardens and what each of us planted (between the three of us, we are going to have a regular farmer's market) and we three make a date for hot summer nights to sit in my yard and drink frosty pink wine while our kids run from yard to yard.
That is middletown America and I am so lucky.

Putting myself out there and Growing Roots

Today I went back to my church's moms group. It is a small informal group that meets once a week on Wednesday mornings in the church's gym around round tables. They have child care for all children under 5 (but if you have an afternoon kindygarten kid like I do - they make allowances for them). We usually do Bible study for an hour, then chat and share stories for another hour. I used to go to this group, but Chase began to scream and wail in the nursery when I dropped him off so I just sort of stopped going. Plus, I wasn't readily connecting with the other moms there, so I figured it was a waste of time.

Lately, my counselor has been encouraging me to set roots down in Salem and grow a support network. He GREATLY encouraged me to go back to Mom's group, but I gently resisted week after week. Today I decided to bite the bullet and just go back. You see, although I am very social and do well in most social situations, I hate putting myself out there personally. It's like I'm going to this group and saying "Here I am- I hope you like me enough to want to talk to me beyond polite chit chat". I found that most -well pretty much all of the moms there - were eager to have me back and were extremely engaging and easy to talk to. I know there is a slight part in me that wants to have instant friends and instant groups and skip all the small talk - but I also know that it just doesn't work that way.
I mean - if you look at the term "growing roots" - it implies that it takes time for roots to develop and get deeper. I even thought of it one step more. Look at summer annual plants. Yes, they set roots quickly and even can go semi deep into the ground within the span of a few months. But they die after one season. They simply don't have enough stamina to survive the winter. In my quest for roots and support here in Salem, I have to take the mentality that if anything is worth having and survivable (if that's even a word) - then I have to trust that it takes time for those roots to develop and grow. Today was the first step.

First Job!

Thanks to the wonders of Craigslist - I have booked my first dog walking job! If you laugh at my new profession, I get $15 to walk two dogs for 20-25 minutes. And they booked me for two days a week. Yeah! I accomplished my first goal which was to have one client within one month. Now for the next month of May, I hope to add two more clients to my roster.

Honestly, since remodeling my life, I have felt great. The counselor I am seeing is really helping me to embrace life - accepting today for what it is - loving Salem OR for what it is - remembering Seattle, Wa for what it was(to me) - appreciating the good things that are happening - having the knowledge that I CAN HANDLE IT - being grateful for healthy kids - and enjoying my new profession; I get to stay at home with the kids, go outside for walks, take the kids with me "to work" if they need to, meet new and interesting people, and hang out with animals - I am satisfied.

I really enjoy our new budget. Yes, we are going without some of fun things we used to have in our lives. But honestly, it makes my heart sing to know that every spending choice we make is putting our family in a better financial state. I am reading a book about kids and money and I thought I would share this little tip about allowances. Personally, I'm not big on allowances. Probably because I didn't receive an allowance as a child - my parent provided for all my needs and I don't remember feeling like I went without anything and by the time I was legally able to work, I had a job that supplied all the money I needed. As a parent, I require that my kids work in the house, but I also want them to feel like they can be compensated for the work they put into the house. Enter the two-tiered system. Every week, your child get irrevocable allowance for his/her part he/she contributes to the family. Say this amount is 50 cents a week. Then, if your child does certain extra chores and work for the family then he/she gets an extra revocable allowance according to the work he/she completed. So 2-3 dollars are added to his allowance. If your child decided that he doesn't want to do chores because he doesn't care about the money, then the extra revocable money will not be added, but the irrevocable amount of 50 cents still gets added to his piggy bank. It teaches your child that yes, he will still receive a salary for contributing to the family, but it is meager and will not supply for all his needs and if he works hard, then he can get the money he wants to buy the supplies he thinks he needs. Does this all make sense? I'll let you know how it works for our family. Currently, we pay our children for chores but often they opt out of not completing them because they simply don't care if they get paid or not. With our new family budget in place, they don't' get things bought for them as readily as they used to, so I think it will be motivation for working harder at chores.

Today, I finished tilling and amending my new sunflower and pumpkin garden bed. I can't wait. If you invite me over for dinner or a playdate this summer, you will get a fresh bouquet of sunflowers!